Tag Archives: marijuana

In what is rapidly beoming a question of when rather than if, the movement by former and current football players to have Marijuana removed from the banned drug list continues to pick up steam.

An article in The Guardian recently looked at the movement, quoting former player Nate Jackson as saying the following:

“I feel like I can speak about this because I’ve tried everything. I’ve shot up HGH [human growth hormone], done the injections, tried the pills, tried marijuana. It’s not that I’m this big marijuana guy, it just helped my body the most.”

The article goes on to talk about how ex-players are moving to states where medical Marijuana is legal to gain relief.

The rationale has scientific backing.

“A 2011 study by researchers at Washington University in St Louis found that former NFL players were four times more likely to abuse prescription painkillers than the general population,” according to the article. “And more than seven in 10 players who used pain medications during their playing days went on to abuse them.”

“The NFL Should Be Investing In Marijuana Research If It Wants To Survive”

“Football Still Doesn’t Get Marijuana”

Two headlines on the national stage in the span of a few days are calling out the NFL and NCAA over its ban on Marijuana.

The first, written by sports industry executive Jason Belzer for Forbes.com notes that “the greatest existential threat to the NFL – if not to the existence of football itself – still remains Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE.”

Belzer, who is founder of GAME, Inc. and a Professor of Organizational Behavior and Sports Law at Rutgers University, writes: “While it remains to be seen whether Junior Seau’s death was preventable, his suffering from CTE might have been eased by chemicals found in marijuana.

“Last year, Harvard Medical School Professor Dr. Lester Grinspoon called attention to a neuro-protective agent that has the potential to render concussions obsolete – Marijuana. According to Grinspoon, a National Institute of Health study from 1998 revealed the neuro-protective qualities of Marijuana’s two main psycho-active ingredients, Cannabidiol and Delta-9 Tetrahudrocannabidol (THC). In 2008, a similar study in Spain revealed that the THC-receptors in the brain are involved in the healing process upon sustaining brain injury. Most recently, the National Institute of Health showed that THC significantly decreases the death rate of patients with physically sustained brain trauma. In 2013, a team of researchers in Brazil were able to prove that Cannabidiol has the ability to regenerate brain cells in mice. The study specifically showed a capacity to promote the growth of brain cells in the areas of the brain attributed to depression, anxiety, and chronic stress—the symptoms of CTE.

BUT before you do, check out some of the provocative prose of national sports columnist Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel in the other article:

“Why do sports policymakers and American lawmakers suspend athletes and arrest citizens for a substance that is no more harmful than a Bud Light or a Scotch and soda?” writes Bianchi. “Sadly, we are in the midst of modern-day prohibition in which we are disgracing and criminalizing decent, hard-working people — doctors, lawyers and football players — and stigmatizing them as ‘lawbreakers’ or ‘substance abusers.'”

Bianchi goes on to take the “ultraconservatives who characterize the proliferation of marijuana in sports as an ‘epidemic.’

“How is it that the NFL can profit from two vices — drinking and gambling — that are responsible for thousands upon thousands of destroyed lives and wrecked families, but then suspends Cleveland Browns star wide receiver Josh Gordon for an entire season because he likes to smoke a little pot?”

Another former NFL player has spoken out on the issue of Marijuana use among players in the NFL.

Former Atlanta Falcon Jamal Anderson told Mike Freeman, the lead NFL writer for Beacher Report the following about the prevalence of pot use.

“It’s at least 60 percent now,” Anderson said. “That’s bare minimum. That’s because players today don’t believe in the stigma that older people associate with smoking it. To the younger guys in the league now, smoking weed is a normal thing, like having a beer. Plus, they know that smoking it helps them with the concussions.”

Freeman offered his own opinion on the matter:

“What’s clear is that numerous players smoke weed. Some because they like it. Some because it helps them deal with the rigors of football. Some because they believe marijuana helps ease the crushing and kaleidoscopic effects of concussions.”